Ice skatin' in New York. During my childhood, many Fridays after school, my friends and I would go to Wollman Rink in Central Park and skate. I didn't know at the time how exceptionally lucky that was.
I haven't been skating in years, but I have lots of sense memories of it - lacing the skates up snugly to support my ankles, the first tottery steps off the bench on the rubbery floor, the clumsy feeling clutching onto the side when I first get out on the ice, the exhilaration when I let go of the wall and begin tentative little glides on my own, the bliss of finding the music's rhythm and taking long glides, the hilarity and joy of twirling and skating backwards, the gasping terror and fun of holding hands with a faster skater and praying not to careen out of control.
The molten heat of the microwaved mini-pizzas (the first microwave oven I ever experienced - in the late 1960s!) Not feeling my toes anymore. And the boiling agony of putting my frosted feet in the bathtub once I got home.
I sure used to love to move like that - think I'll go take a walk.
